The Championship strugglers have been “adopted” by radio star Chris Evans after a light-hearted, but telling, live chat with McCarthy on his show yesterday.

The Yorkshire-born Irish legend is known for his plain-speaking and he has been an occasional guest on Evans’ Radio Two show during his sabbatical from the cut and thrust of football management.

So he was happy to talk to the DJ as he got ready to pick and prepare his squad for today’s crucial Championship match at Birmingham.

Evans is clearly not that familiar with this part of the country – he thinks it is out of this world!

He asked McCarthy if he was already house-hunting: “Because Ipswich is further away than Mars – you know that?”

And his experience of travelling to Ipswich will not have chimed with too many Suffolk people.

He told McCarthy: “No offence to Ipswich. I went there about eight weeks ago. I’ve never driven to Ipswich before but it seems so far away because the roads are so beautiful but they’r pretty desolate!”

That will have left many people wondering what route he took to reach Ipswich from London, because two words that don’t sum up the A12 through Essex are beautiful or desolate!

While the interview was light-hearted, there were some telling replies from McCarthy. When Evans asked him what he was looking forward to doing with his family on days off his reply was blunt.

“I don’t think I’ll be getting too many days off. Have you seen where Ipswich are in the league? We’re bottom of the league, six points to get out of the bottom three. I think I might be grafting most days to be honest!”

He said Paul Jewell and Chris Hutchins were good friends of his – but this was the way of the world in football.

McCarthy said: “Paul knows. You go in and do the job. If it goes well you get lauded for it. If it doesn’t go well you get the tin-tack (sack). That’s the way it goes!”

Whether the new Town boss has time to do more chats on the Chris Evans show is not clear – but at least the club has been adopted by Britain’s top DJ.